21 ChatGPT Statistics You Won't Find Anywhere Else

By now everyone has heard of ChatGPT, the AI chatbot launched in November which can answer complex questions in a human conversational style.

Some believe it will make Google redundant and completely revolutionize education and the jobs market. Others think it is a fad that we’ll stop talking about by summer.

However, what do the stats say? Who is using ChatGPT, how popular is it, and what are they using it for?

ChatGPT statistics [Editor’s Choice]

ChatGPT likes to dig into the data to make informed responses, but what does the data say about the technology itself?

These ChatGPT statistics and facts are revealing to say the least.

• ChatGPT had over 500 million users in January.
• 70% of users are male.
• China has seen a higher rise in Google search interest in ChatGPT than any other country, despite being banned there.
• Washington D.C. is the most AI-interested US state.
• Using ChatGPT to help with coding is one of the most popular use cases.
• Ukrainians are searching for VPNs to access ChatGPT, which is banned in the country.
• Parent company OpenAI projects revenue of $1 billion by 2024, despite profit capping.
• On YouTube, ChatGPT searches related to Jordan Peterson are higher than any other public figure.

ChatGPT stats by country

Google Trends and SimilarWeb reveal what users in different countries are searching for in relation to ChatGPT and where it has spiked the most in popularity.

1. China has seen a higher rise in Google search interest in ChatGPT than any other country, despite being banned there.

(Source: VPNCentral)

The chatbot has continued to rise in popularity since its launch, with searchers in China generating the biggest spike in Google searches. However, the platform is effectively banned in the country and cannot be shared on the social media platform WeChat. Chinese search giant Baidu is also planning to launch its own alternative AI service.

2. The US accounts for 19.2% of ChatGPT traffic.

(Source: SimilarWeb)

As of December, the United States is the top country per raw traffic to OpenAi.com, accounting for 19.2% of it. This is followed by India with 5.7% and the UK with 3.56% of traffic.

3. ChatGPT is the most popular related search term for VPN in Ukraine, where it is banned.

(Source: VPNCentral, Mezha)

OpenAI has blocked access to ChatGPT in 6 countries: Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and Venezuela. In Ukraine, ChatGPT is currently the most popular related query when users are searching for the term VPN, suggesting a strong desire to get around the ban.

4. Washington D.C. is the most AI-interested US state.

(Source: VPNCentral)

Of the US states, Washington DC (or the District of Columbia to be precise) is the most active in searching for ChatGPT. When sorted by cities, Stanford ranks the highest, which likely reflects Stanford University’s recent development of the DetectGPT plagiarism tool for teachers.

5. On YouTube, ChatGPT searches related to Jordan Peterson are higher than any other public figure.

(Source: VPNCentral)

Controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson has a huge reach on YouTube and users are clamoring for his opinions on ChatGPT. In the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom, he is the most searched public figure in relation to the chatbot.

The top relevant results are either warnings about the dangers of AI or make-money guides. Interestingly, he has not officially uploaded any discussion about ChatGPT himself.

Meanwhile, the only other public figure with a significant search impact is co-founder Elon Musk, who is searched most heavily on Google in Brazil.

6. ChatGPT is more popular among Canadian TikTok users.

(Source: TikTok)

In the past 120 days, the ChatGPT term has garnered roughly 792 million views on TikTok, where Canada is the top region of interest. This is followed by Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and France. Meanwhile, more 18–24-year-olds have engaged with the term than 25-34s and 35s and older combined. This does, however, reflect the demographic of TikTok itself.

7. Other AI generators have also spiked in interest.

(Source: VPNCentral)

The vast interest in ChatGPT also correlates with renewed interest in other AI services. For example, in the same period as when ChatGPT went live, the image AI tool Midjourney reached a level of interest higher than its previous peak in the summer.

A similar trend can be seen with the AI companion Replika, which is most popular in Hungary, Turkey, and Poland.

ChatGPT use cases

There’s no denying that ChatGPT has become a viral phenomenon, but how is the AI text generator being applied day-to-day?

8. The majority of ChatGPT users are seeking help for essays and programming.

(Source: VPNCentral)

Google shows the chatbot trends towards helping with writing essays, programming, and other tutorials. This has prompted concerns over plagiarism in schools and higher education. Moreover, the coding community Stack Overflow has banned the use of ChatGPT in its user-posted answers because of inaccuracies.

9. ChatGPT users want help with Python and Excel the most.

(Source: VPNCentral)

The most searched programming language for ChatGPT is Python, which makes sense since it’s one of the most popular for general-purpose coding. While Excel is not technically a programming language, trends suggest people are using ChatGPT to help with formulas in their spreadsheets.

10. Users in Brazil, Germany, and the United States want to make money with ChatGPT.

(Source: VPNCentral)

With the ability to create code and help write essays, it’s no surprise that people are looking to make money with ChatGPT. On YouTube, the most popular query in Brazil is chatgpt how to make money, while in Germany it is chatgpt earn money. In the United States make money with chatgpt is the second most popular query.

11. In Turkey there is a spike in searches for freelancer site Upwork, in relation to ChatGPT.

(Source: VPNCentral)

One obvious way to make money is to sell your coding services as a freelancer but make the AI do all the work. This could be the case in Turkey where Google Trends show an uptick in ChatGPT-related queries for the Python programming language and freelancer site Upwork.

12. A Judge in Columbia used ChatGPT to help determine a ruling.

(Source: The Guardian)

From the most common to the craziest use cases – a judge in Colombia has admitted to using ChatGPT to ask if an autistic minor should be exonerated from paying fees for their therapies.

This sparks debate about the line between relying on AI and using it to increase efficiency.

Background ChatGPT stats

ChatGPT has only been live for a few months but is trending across the world and is set to make huge profits. These ChatGPT statistics give more background on the chatbot’s growth and its parent company, OpenAI.

13. ChatGPT surpassed one million users in under a week following its launch.

(Source: Twitter, Statista)

Although OpenAI does not release official ChatGPT usage data, CEO Sam Altman did reveal on Twitter that the chatbot reached 1 million users in just a few days after launch. In comparison, Twitter itself took 2 years to reach the same number of people. Its viral rise can be attributed to its accessibility and near-immediate responses.

14. By December OpenAI.com had more than 300 million visitors.

(Source: SimilarWeb, The Guardian)

Its explosion in popularity is unrivaled by any other web company launch. In December 2022, the OpenAI.com website reached 304 million visitors. This jumped to 590 million in January. It makes it the 98th most popular website in the world, as measured by SImilarWeb.

By comparison, TikTok didn’t reach 100 million users until 9 months in.

15. 70% of ChatGPT users are male.

(Source: SimilarWeb)

The male/female tech divide continues with ChatGPT, as 70.2% of visitors to OpenAI.com are male, compared to 29.8% female.

16. YouTube refers the most ChatGPT traffic among social media sites.

(Source: SimilarWeb)

Of all social media sites, YouTube refers the most traffic to OpenAI/ChatGPT. This accounts for 52.24% as of December. The next highest referrer is Twitter, with 15.33% of all social media-generated traffic.

17. ChatGPT was trained on 570 gigabytes of text across 175 billion parameters.

(Source: Stanford.edu, The Verge)

GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer and the technology is currently on its third language model, GPT-3. This is based on 175 billion parameters and 570 gigabytes of text. The data is so vast that the AI can complete requests it was not overtly trained for, like language translations.

Sam Altman says rumors that GPT-4 will increase the parameters to 100 trillion are completely bullsh*t.

18. The AI only uses data up to 2021 and does not browse the current web for the latest information.

(Source: OpenAI)

Despite its impressive results, ChatGPT’s accuracy has been called into question and it is also incapable of processing recent information. For example, if you ask something like: What was the price of gold over the past 3 months, it will remind you its training data only goes up until 2021.

This means it cannot replace popular search engines, yet. However, Google considers ChatGPT a threat and issued an internal code red. It is also readying its own neural language model, LaMDA.

19. OpenAI projects revenue of $1 billion by 2024.

(Source: Reuters)

ChatGPT originally launched as a not-for-profit service but later capped profits at no more than 100 times the investment. Microsoft put in $1 billion of funding, so with revenue projections at $1 billion by 2024, it still has enormous room to grow financially.

OpenAI makes most of its money through the freemium model.

20. It could cost up to $3 million a month to run ChatGPT.

(Source: Twitter)

Sam Altman noted on Twitter that the average cost per chat is probably “in the single digits”. However, when you factor in the number of users, the total cost is much more.

Analyst Tom Goldstein estimates that if 10 million queries were made a day, and the platform relies on Microsoft Azure’s $3/hr A100 GPUs, then the total cost is in the realm of $100K per day, or $3M per month.

21. ChatGPT Plus launched in February 2023.

(Source: OpenAI)

For $20 a month, a premium subscription now gives users priority access during peak times, faster responses, and first dibs on new features. ChatGPT’s sister, image AI platform Dall-E, also offers some creations for free before requiring a subscription.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that mass use of AI is here and these ChatGPT statistics show that OpenAI is leading the pack.

While it might be too soon to determine how the technology will disrupt internet search and other industries, it’s already being used for everything from coding to court cases.

Have you tried ChatGPT? What did you use it for and helpful were the responses? Let us know in the comments below!

Sources

1. Twitter
2. Statista
3. SimilarWeb
4. The Guardian
5. Stanford.edu
6. The Verge
7. OpenAI
8. Reuters
9. Twitter
10. OpenAI
11. Mezha
12. TikTok
13. The Guardian